Tuesday, 5 April 2016

Heptacarpus pictus (Brandt 1851)

When describing the transparent shrimp Heptacarpus pictus Ed Ricketts says that, ‘there is such a fairylike beauty to this ephemeral creature that the inexperienced observer will be certain that he is seeing a rare form’ and goes on to explain that: . . .once captured, the living specimen should be confined in a glass vial not much larger than itself and examined with a hand lens. The beating heart and all the other internal organs can be seen very plainly through the transparent body.